By Shane Stokes
Cycling Ireland’s paracycling coach, Jaime Blanchfield, has said that last week’s track world championships will spur Irish riders on to raise their game in advance of the Paralympics, with an increase in standard of their rivals showing what needs to be done.
“As we expected, every nation has lifted its level in Paralympic year,” Blanchfield said on Tuesday. “Rio has been an insightful benchmarking event for us, and it is clear where we need to focus our efforts in preparation for Paris.”
Irish riders had secured three bronze medals in last year’s track worlds, two with Ronan Grimes and one with tandem duo Katie-George Dunlevy and Eve McCrystal, but came home without medals this time around.
Dunlevy and McCrystal were closest to the podium, taking fourth in the individual pursuit final. They were also fifth in the tandem 1km TT on Thursday and sixth in the tandem sprint on Sunday.
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A number of other top six finishes were achieved. WC3 rider Richael Timothy and MC2 contestant Chris Burns were fifth and sixth respectively in their omnium events.
Male tandem pairing Martin Gordon and Eoin Mullen were fifth in the sprint and sixth in the 1km TT, and Grimes was fifth in the MC4 scratch race.
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While medals would have been the target for many of those events, Blanchfield said that the performances moved Irish riders closer to qualifying a bigger squad for the Games.
“Overall, we were consistent and secured a good spread of ranking points through the different races and classes, male and female, which should keep us on track to qualify a good team size for the Paralympics.”
He said there is a priority to work hard in the coming weeks for more key events.
“The remaining two counting events for Paris qualification - two UCI Road World Cups - happen in May so the riders will be knuckling down to a big block of training now to progress their road fitness to be competitive for these important final two races.”
Timothy acknowledged a raising in standard.
“It is clear that the bar has been raised again since last year, with all eyes on the Paris Paralympic Games this summer. Personally, I felt that I gave my all but definitely have areas to work on ahead of the last two World Cup Qualifiers. Onto a big training block for April.”
Burns described the worlds as “very positive…and very consistent with the previous Worlds in Glasgow. Looking forward to building towards Paris.”
See more details about the results here.
